Exit polls show that Angela Merkel has won her fourth term as chancellor of Germany. Her center-right party CDU won a plurality with 32.9% of the votes but lost significant support compared to the previous election. However, CDU’s coalition partner, the social democrats (SPD), sported their worst election results since World War II with only 20%.
On the other hand, the new unruly kid in the political class, the patriotic Alternative for Germany (AfD), surged to 13.5%, nearly tripling in size from the 2013 election. The primary outcome of the German election is to confirm the trend that we have observed in elections all across Europe: the traditional parties are weakening, especially the social democrats, while the new patriotic right is making massive gains.
A Victory?
Do you think it is strange that a so-called conservative party is in a coalition with Bernie Sanders-type social democrats? Welcome to European politics.
Under other circumstances, political commentators might have been talking about the election result in Germany as a victory for the right, with an excellent opportunity for Merkel to form a right-wing majority coalition together with the pro-business party (FDP) and the patriot party (AfD), but that option is practically non-existent. Both CDU and FDP are globalists and strong supporters of open borders. They would cooperate with Karl Marx before seriously considering AfD.
Policies, Not Labels
So who is this untouchable Alternative for Germany? Neo-Nazis? According to Antifa, which protested outside AfD’s headquarters on election night, they most certainly are. But then again, according to them, so is President Donald Trump.
Rather than reverting to labels, it is better to let their policies speak for themselves. AfD was founded as a centrist-right EU-skeptic party in 2013 on the heels of Germany’s bailout of the corrupt, bankrupt Greek leadership. They want Germany to remain a sovereign country.
In the same vein, they were also firmly against mass immigration, especially from third world countries. The party emphasized this message after the 2015 migrant crisis. Political pundits agree that Merkel’s feeble response to that situation is the main reason for AfD’s gains.
Finally, they are also climate skeptics, socially conservative and pro-privatization and free markets. In other words, they do not hold any standard national socialist positions. There is no evidence that the party is populated by racists, although they have been firmly against an increase in the influence of Islam in Europe.
Furthermore, even though they received only 13.5% of the votes, polls have shown that a majority of the EU’s population are in alignment with their views on Islam. Regarding support of ideas and views, AfD is mainstream.
Voters Rejecting Communism
So why then is AfD considered so toxic by the other parties? The former prime minister of Sweden hinted at a potential explanation in a recent tweet, where he points out that AfD did much better in the former communist East Germany than in the West.
In former GDR-parts of Germany AfD is now a stronger party than social democrats SPD. pic.twitter.com/4FKwuUNw79
— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) September 24, 2017
This conforms to a pattern seen across Europe: in all former European communist countries, people are far more skeptical of Cultural Marxism than in the West. They have already tried Communism and know from personal experience how God-awful it is. By contrast, people in Western Europe have been living in freedom for so long that they don’t know how lucky they are, and how precious and brittle it is.
Is the rise of patriotic parties across Western Europe an indication that the Cultural Marxists are meeting resistance from the voters? It is too early to say.
